During the Copenhagen Climate Summit, carbon offsets are a topic for discussion. Carbon offests are “essentially a service whereby the purchaser pays someone else to create greenhouse gas reductions on his or her behalf” (The Suzuki Foundation). Since the inception of the Kyoto Protocol, they have been a popular mechanism to encourage awareness about climate change, and to reduce carbon emissions. However, according the US News “officials [at Copenhagen] will be considering which types of offset programs work and can actually be enforced,” because “there’s a big potential for fraud here.” To date, there is no formal regulation of carbon offsets, and there are a number of concerns with their use.
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